Making a difference — The Dardanelle Five: Teachers who have a positive impactEditor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series of stories that focuses ono people who are making a difference in education in the Arkansas River Valley. Earlier this year, the Dardanelle School District was selected as one of the 539 schools in the United States and Canada to be placed in the AP District Honor Roll. It’s a distinction the district earned due to the efforts of all its employees, but the learning process always begins with the...

Budget cuts to hit military school districts first FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — Public schools everywhere will be affected by the government’s automatic budget cuts, but few may feel the funding pinch faster than those on and around military bases. School districts with military ties from coast-to-coast are bracing for increased class sizes and delayed building repairs. Others already have axed sports teams and even eliminated teaching positions, but still may have to tap savings just to make it th...

Police in 1 Minnesota town set up shop in schools JORDAN, Minn. (AP) — One small-town Minnesota school district is taking a unique approach to keeping students safe: The police are moving in. In Jordan, south of Minneapolis, officials looking at school security after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut decided the police would set up satellite offices in public schools. Officers will conduct some of their daily work from the schools, including taking calls and filling ...

Tech faculty members promoted, granted tenureTwenty-one members of the Arkansas Tech University faculty were promoted and eight Tech faculty members were granted tenure by the Arkansas Tech Board of Trustees during its meeting at the Ross Pendergraft Library and Technology Center on Thursday. Policies and procedures regarding faculty evaluation, promotion and tenure were developed by an independent faculty committee in spring 1995 and approved by the Arkansas Tech Board of Trustees on Ju...

Tech reaches out to new audience with programThere’s a new option on the horizon for college graduates from a wide variety of backgrounds who want to sharpen their business acumen while earning a master’s degree. Arkansas Tech University will offer course work toward a Master of Science in Business Administration degree for the first time during the fall 2013 semester. The 30-hour program, which is the first master’s degree offering from the Arkansas Tech College of Business, is availabl...

Michelle Obama highlights obesity progress in MississippiCLINTON, Miss. (AP) — Michelle Obama on Wednesday congratulated this Southern state for a more than 13 percent drop in its child obesity rates, saying its example should inspire the rest of the country. It’s the reason she made Mississippi the first stop on a two-day tour to promote her signature effort, the anti-childhood obesity campaign she launched three years ago called “Let’s Move.” In remarks at an elementary school near Jackson, the fi...

Lottery official: Pope County 'gets more than it gives' for scholarshipsA recent report of lottery numbers show two major trends in the Russellville area: People in Pope and Yell County have been buying generous amounts of lottery tickets, in turn producing thousands of scholarships for local college students, and the lottery sales statewide have brought more students — and more money — to Russellville. According to a report by the Arkansas Lottery Commission, the lottery has paid out more than $23 million to Pope...

Emails: UA chancellor audit thoughts over deficit LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - University of Arkansas at Fayetteville Chancellor G. David Gearhart threatened to call in auditors as early as Aug. 6 last year if he couldn't get answers regarding a surprise $3 million-plus budget deficit in the Division of University Advancement, university records show. By late September, top officials suspected enough bad accounting and financial practices in the troubled fundraising division to warrant an audit, ...

Russellville School District signs contract with food service(Note: below are summaries of two school board meetings that took place this week. Dover’s School Board meeting Thursday was postponed due to weather, and has been rescheduled for Feb. 28.) Russellville The Russellville School Board voted to enter into a contract with a food service consultant at its meeting Tuesday, in an attempt to improve culinary services at schools district-wide. The contract, which initially begins as a five-month period...

SD college tests fingerprint purchasing technology RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — Futurists have long proclaimed the coming of a cashless society, where dollar bills and plastic cards are replaced by fingerprint and retina scanners smart enough to distinguish a living, breathing account holder from an identity thief. What they probably didn’t see coming was that one such technology would make its debut not in Silicon Valley or MIT but at a small state college in remote western South Dakota, 25 miles ...

Young scientists show stuff at RHSThe stars were shining bright inside the Russellville High School cafeteria Tuesday night as students and teachers stayed late to show off their intellectual wares at the school district’s Science Fair. Chuck Campbell, advanced placement (AP) biology teacher and science department head, ended the Science Fair competition by saying, “The reason we did this, it’s all about education.” Winners will attend the 47th annual Arkansas Junior Science a...

No major injuries after school bus slides off roadThree students and the driver of a Russellville School District (RSD) bus were transported to Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center on Wednesday following an accident on Alaskan Trail. Pope County Sheriff Aaron DuVall said the Russellville school bus made its way down a hill on Alaskan Trail around 4 p.m. Wednesday, went around a curve, slid off the road into a ditch area and became wedged against a tree. The sheriff confirmed the bus did not r...

Word on the Street: Concealed Carry on CampusThe Arkansas House of Representatives approved legislation Friday that would allow handguns to be carried on college campuses with a concealed carry license. If passed by the Senate, the law would potentially be applied to Arkansas Tech, which currently doesn’t allow guns on campus. The Courier spoke with four Arkansas Tech students and a university staff member Monday on their thoughts about the proposed law and whether or not concealed carry...

Flower returns to intern at alma materDuring Travis Flower’s senior year as an undergraduate student at Arkansas Tech University in 2010-11, he was president of the Student Government Association and winner of the Alfred J. Crabaugh Award as the most outstanding senior male student on campus. It would be fair to say that his leadership qualities and willingness to give of his time to help others made him a “big man on campus.” And yet, he still benefited from the same one-on-one f...

Field of 21 set to compete for Miss Tech 2013 titleTwenty-one students have registered as contestants in the 58th annual Miss Arkansas Tech University Scholarship Pageant. The pageant will be on Friday at Witherspoon Auditorium. It will begin at 7 p.m. Admission will be $8 for adults, $5 for minors and free with a current and valid Arkansas Tech identification card. Miss Arkansas 2012 Sloane Roberts of Rison and Miss Tech 2012 Claire Hodgson of Russellville will provide entertainment. The even...

John Tyson resigns from Univ. of Ark. board FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) - A spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe confirms that Tyson Foods Chairman John Tyson has resigned from the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees - a move that apparently took university officials by surprise. Tyson resigned Feb. 8 but the university says it wasn't aware until the decision Arkansas Business reported it on its Web site Friday. A letter from Tyson to Beebe express what Tyson called frustration with the board...

My classmate, the robot: NY pupil attends remotely WEST SENECA, N.Y. (AP) — In an elementary school hallway, a teacher takes her second-graders to the library, leading a single-file line of giggling boys and girls that’s perfectly ordinary until you get to a sleek white robot with a video screen showing the face of a smiling, chubby-cheeked boy. Devon Carrow’s life-threatening allergies don’t allow him to go to school. But the 4-foot-tall robot with a wireless video hookup gives him the school...

Opponents denounce call for anti-gay prom in IndianaSULLIVAN, Ind. (AP) — A quiet Indiana community known for its parks and corn festival has become the latest setting for the debate over gay rights and bullying after several area residents, including some high schoolers, proposed holding a non-school sanctioned “traditional” prom that would ban gay students. School officials and many residents of Sullivan, a city of about 4,200 near the Illinois border, have scrambled to distance themselves fr...

Obama pushes preschool plan, won’t discuss cost DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — Raising hopes among parents who want preschool for all, President Barack Obama on Thursday rolled out a plan to vastly expand government-funded early childhood while keeping the price tag a secret. Republicans, wary of high costs and questionable outcomes, made clear they have no intention of signing a blank check. Setting up yet another clash with Republicans over spending and the proper scope of government, Obama in his S...